Florida mom warns about dangers of Dragon’s Breath cereal

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (WFLA) – A Florida boy was sent to the hospital after eating the liquid nitrogen snack known as Dragon’s Breath, his mother said. Now she’s warning others about the dangers of the popular summer treat.

Dragon’s Breath is cereal dipped in liquid nitrogen. It allegedly tastes like Kellogg’s Froot Loops and can be as cold as negative 320 degrees. Once ingested, it produces vapors that leave the mouth and nose like smoke—just like a dragon’s breath.

Racheal Richard McKenny of St. Augustine said her son “could have died” after trying Dragon’s Breath at The Avenues Mall in Jacksonville.

Shortly after eating the snack, McKenny said her son Johnny, who has very mild asthma, started having trouble breathing.

“Around 20 minutes in, the cough became really consistent. By the time we passed the Palencia subdivision, he was coughing so bad that he was having trouble catching his breath,” she wrote in a post on Facebook. “We knew he couldn’t breathe, and we knew that we couldn’t get him to the hospital in time.”

The family pulled into a fire station where EMTs gave him albuterol and an IV, then took him to the hospital.

“The nebulizer was not improving his breathing at all and, by the time they got him loaded into the ambulance, he needed a shot of epinephrine,” she said. “Johnny had a second breathing treatment and steroid on the way to the hospital.”

“Even if you don’t have asthma it can be very, very inflammatory or irritating to the airway and your esophagus and your stomach, all of that,” Dr. Sunil Joshi of Family Allergy Asthma Consultants told the Palm Beach Post.

Joshi said exposure to the nitrogen can also cause serious burns. A 14-year-old girl was severely burned at a fair while handling the dessert, according to WEARTV.

The manager of the Dragon’s Breath kiosk at The Avenues Mall said this appeared to be an isolated incident, given that several other customers with asthma didn’t have the same reaction. The kiosk has posted an updated notice on their cash register with an asthma and allergy warning, he added.

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